


Reverse Psychology

by Robin Hood (kjack89)



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Banter, Developing Relationship, Friendship, M/M, You know the way only friends can, mild manipulation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-20
Updated: 2018-05-20
Packaged: 2019-05-09 11:37:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14715291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kjack89/pseuds/Robin%20Hood
Summary: “What, no mockery?” Rafael asked, the tips of his ears burning red as he fumbled to return his phone to his pocket. “No snide comment about flirting with the NYPD equivalent of the pool boy?”Rita chose her words very, very carefully.“I mean, we’ve all been there,” she said blithely with an easy, unconcerned shrug. “And the NYPD equivalent of the pool boy is fine for a temporary distraction.” She paused and took a calculated sip of her martini. “But it’s not as if you’re planning anything long-term with him. After all, it wouldn’t be right.”Rafael frowned. “What do you mean?” he asked warily.Rita gave him her best, most condescending look. “Rafael, you’re a Harvard-educated lawyer who could have your pick of law firms if you’d just get off your moral high horse,” she said with patronizing patience. “Harvard-educated lawyers don’t date cops who graduated from, what, community college?”





	Reverse Psychology

**Author's Note:**

  * For [piepeloe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/piepeloe/gifts).



> Usual disclaimer. Please be kind and tip your fanfic writers in the form of comments and/or kudos!

Rita Calhoun paused at Rafael Barba’s open office door, hand raised to knock — though the knock was really a formality, as she had all intentions of just strolling in — but she paused just before her knuckles could rap against the wood.

Mainly because Rafael was _smiling_.

Rita was used to appearing at his office to find him in various stages of frowning, scowling, glaring and glowering at whatever case or trial she had the misfortune of interrupting.

But for once, Rafael wasn’t staring at a casefile as if he could cause spontaneous combustion through the force of his glare alone. In fact, he wasn’t even looking at any of the casefile scattered and stacked across his desk.

Instead, he was smiling at his phone, his thumbs flying across the keyboard as he typed a rapid message.

“Careful, Rafael,” she said sweetly, making her way into his office. “Your face might freeze that way.”

He glanced up at her, his smile not quite fading even as his brow furrowed. “I see you’re no longer bothering to knock,” he said mildly, setting his phone down on his desk.

“As if knocking was somehow a deterrent,” Rita said dismissively. “Who are you smiling at?”

“No one,” Rafael said, equally dismissive. “It’s work.”

Rita lowered herself into the seat across from him. “Why, Rafael, I had no idea you smiled like that when you got my texts.”

Rafael rolled his eyes. “Your texts aren’t work,” he informed her. “They’re an annoyance.” Rita just smirked and Rafael rolled his eyes again before asking, “Can I help you with something, Counselor?”

“I just came to see if we were still on for drinks tonight,” she said, crossing one leg over the other.

Rafael’s eyes narrowed. “And that required a housecall? Rita, I’m touched.”

Rita shrugged. “Considering you’ve cancelled on me three weeks running, I figured the personal touch couldn’t hurt.” She paused. “Besides, I was in the building.”

“Still on your one-woman mission to drive O’Dwyer up a wall?” Rafael asked wryly.

“If he didn’t make it so easy for me, it wouldn’t be nearly as fun,” Rita said with a laugh before fixing Rafael with a look. “So. Tonight?”

Rafael sighed. “Despite you having the free time to apparently pop over here whenever you feel like it, some of us have obligations that make blowing off work for drinks difficult.”

“Obligations like the kind that have you smiling down at your phone?” Rita asked baldly, raising one eyebrow. “Does that mean you’re cancelling on me?” She paused just long enough for Rafael to squirm before adding, “Again?”

Rafael scowled. “No,” he snapped. “It just means that I need to rearrange my schedule for the evening.”

Rita’s smile widened. “And you’d do that?” she asked, voice saccharine. “For me?”

“Against my better judgment, yes,” Rafael sighed, reaching for his phone. “Especially if it means you getting off my ass for another few months.” Rita pursed her lips and Rafael sighed again. “I’m going to severely regret that choice of words, aren’t I?”

“Well,” Rita said delicately, “better than saying this would get me off your nuts for a few months.”

Rafael snorted. “Your father would be rolling in his grave if he could hear the mouth on you. All those years of finishing school, wasted.”

Rita smirked and stood. “Just another thing we have in common, Rafael,” she said. “We always did live to disappoint our fathers.” She paused and gave him a measured look. “So we’re on for tonight?”

“Forlini’s. 9pm. There’ll be a nice gin martini with your name on it, extra dirty, extra dry.”

“Excellent,” Rita said, her tone turning brisk. “For that, there’ll be a glass of Macallan 12 waiting for you, neat.”

Rafael smirked as well, and neither chose to comment on the fact that making plans for drinks sounded more like issuing a challenge than anything else. It was just their way. “See you then.”

* * *

 

As it turned out, Rita arrived at Forlini’s before Rafael, so she had to order her own drink.

She was definitely going to make Rafael pay for that later.

When he finally strolled in fifteen minutes past the hour, Rita had finished her first martini and just ordered her second, and she looked pointedly at the glass of scotch waiting for Rafael as he sat. “You’re lucky you don’t take your scotch on the rocks,” she said frostily.

Rafael rolled his eyes. “Sorry that I’m all of fifteen minutes late,” he huffed. “As if the quarter hour didn’t give you ample time to scope the place out for potential conquests.”

Rita looked mock-scandalized. “Who, me?” she asked. “I did no such thing.”

Leaning back in his seat, Rafael gave her a look before glancing around the place. “Let me guess — the blonde woman in the first booth, the brunette at the far end of the bar, and the dark-haired guy behind me.”

“Close,” Rita said noncommittally. “You forgot our gorgeous bartender.”

She smirked at the bartender in question, who went beet red and went back to fixing Rita’s second martini, his hand shaking just slightly as he picked up the bottle of olive brine.

Rafael rolled his eyes. “Please don’t get us kicked out of my favorite bar. You’re one of my oldest friends but if I had to pick between you and Forlini’s, I’d pick Forlini’s.”

“Such loyalty,” Rita said dryly. “It’s touching.”

Though Rafael looked like he was about to respond, he instead got a text and pulled his phone out, while Rita was distracted by the arrival of her second martini. Still, by the time she turned back to Rafael, he was still engrossed in his phone, and it took several pointed seconds for him to look up at her, that small, half-smile back in full force. “Sorry,” he said, returning his phone to his pocket. “It’s—”

“Work,” Rita finished for him, pursing her lips slightly as she took a sip of her martini. “So who could you possibly work with that’s inspired something other than your customary scowl?”

Rafael’s scowl returned. “Well certainly not you,” he retorted, taking a swig of scotch.

“I would certainly hope not,” Rita said, tossing her hair imperiously. “My goal is, as always, to inspire nothing more than homicidal rage.”

“And you’re _so_ good at it,” Rafael said with a touch of his usual snark, but it disappeared the moment his phone vibrated again, his entire expression softening as he pulled his phone out and glanced down at it.

Rita rolled her eyes and leaned forward, plucking Rafael’s phone out of his hand and glancing down at it. “Oh,” she said, realization flooding her as she saw ‘DET. CARISI’ at the top of the message thread, reinforced by the texts which in just the few she saw were layered with innuendo and subtext. “Of course.”

“Of course?” Rafael snapped, glaring at her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

For one moment, Rita was sorely tempted to make a snide comment. It was what they did, after all — it was their patented banter: born over late nights spent in the Harvard Law Library where their barbs were the only thing that kept them awake; perfected over equally late nights as first year associates doing the grunt work no partner in the law firm wanted to do; and weaponized when they found themselves as opposing counsel through the years.

It would be easy for her to make the perfect caustic comment to dismiss this burgeoning...whatever between Rafael and the detective.

But somehow, Rita couldn’t find it in herself.

Maybe she was getting soft in her old age, but there was something endlessly endearing about the young detective, the least of which was his ability to not only tolerate Rafael’s snide derision but to instead rise to the challenge.

Rafael needed that in his life.

And as one of his oldest friends, Rita had an obligation not to ruin this before it could even begin.

So she merely raised her eyebrows before sliding the phone back across the bar to Rafael. “Nothing.”

“What, no mockery?” Rafael asked, the tips of his ears burning red as he fumbled to return his phone to his pocket. “No snide comment about flirting with the NYPD equivalent of the pool boy?”

Rita chose her words very, very carefully.

“I mean, we’ve all been there,” she said blithely with an easy, unconcerned shrug. “And the NYPD equivalent of the pool boy is fine for a temporary distraction.” She paused and took a calculated sip of her martini. “But it’s not as if you’re planning anything long-term with him. After all, it wouldn’t be right.”

Rafael frowned. “What do you mean?” he asked warily.

Rita gave him her best, most condescending look. “Rafael, you’re a Harvard-educated lawyer who could have your pick of law firms if you’d just get off your moral high horse,” she said with patronizing patience. “Harvard-educated lawyers don’t date cops who graduated from, what, community college?”

Rafael bristled at that, and Rita had to tamp down her glee. He was playing right into her hands. “Sonny graduated from Fordham Law, which is one of the top 50 law schools in the country. I’d hardly call that a community college.”

“Compared to Harvard?” Rita said dismissively. “It may as well be. Besides which, Rafael, he’s from Staten Island. Need I say more?”

“And I’m from the South Bronx,” Rafael shot back. “And you know damn well there are plenty of attorneys in your own firm who wouldn’t deign to be seen about town with the uppity abogado.”

His tone was so caustic that Rita momentarily lost the thread of what she was trying to accomplish here. “You know that I couldn’t care less where you’re from,” she said quietly.

Rafael shrugged and drained his drink. “If only more people shared that opinion,” he said, just a touch bitterly. He raised an eyebrow at her as he gestured to the bartender for a refill. “Which is also why I can’t hold Sonny’s background against him.”

Rafael had called Det. Carisi ‘Sonny’.

Twice.

He really did have it bad.

“Maybe you can’t,” she acknowledged. “But you’ve got ambitions, Rafael, and between your background and his, if this went beyond flirty text messages, you might as well kiss those ambitions goodbye.”

Rafael glared at her. “I refuse to believe that I have to somehow choose between a potential relationship and career advancement,” he snapped.

“And in our world, Rafi, that’s often a choice we don’t get the luxury of making for ourselves.”

Rafael glowered at her, clearly lining up the various arguments he was planning on using against her, and Rita took his momentary silence as an opportunity to take a sip of her martini.

Then he huffed a laugh and drew a hand across his face. “I know what you’re doing,” he said, with a tired sort of resignation, and Rita smirked.

“Do you,” she returned, more of a statement than a question.

“Yes,” he ground out, frustration bubbling to the surface and Rita’s smirk grew. She sensed a victory. “And I’m not going to play your game.”

“Fine then,” she said unconcernedly, draining her martini. “Prove me right.”

Rafael’s jaw clenched and Rita watched with barely controlled amusement as indecision played out across Rafael’s face. If he told her to fuck off as he so clearly wanted to do, he’d have been goaded into exactly what she wanted him to do in the first place. On the other hand, if he put his phone away, ostensibly prioritizing his career, he’d be admitting that she was right and he couldn’t have both.

It was a lose-lose situation for him.

And Rita was loving it.

But still, his indecision was difficult for her to watch, especially since one choice was so obviously the better of the two, even if it did give her a victory, so she decided to play her trump card, the one thing that would make his decision clear as day.

“After all,” she added archly, “what would your father think?”

Rafael’s eyes flashed to hers, and after a beat, a slow smile spread across his face. “Well, as you said,” he murmured, leaning forward to clink his glass of scotch against her martini glass, “we live to disappoint our fathers.”

Rita grinned. “So what are you waiting for?” she asked, flagging down their bartender. “Go — I don’t know, mock his clothing choices or whatever it is that passes for flirting between you two.” She switched her attention to the bartender. “He’ll be paying my tab.”

Rafael rolled his eyes. “After this, I should be making you pay my tab,” he said, even as he pulled out his wallet.

“Please,” she scoffed. “After this, you owe me, and this is just a down payment.”

Rafael glared at her. “You do know that I would have come to this conclusion without your interference.”

“Sure, given another five years,” Rita said mildly, and Rafael snorted, even though he couldn’t seem to find a comeback as he instead pulled out his phone to assumedly send another text to Carisi. “Give the Detective my best, would you?”

“I absolutely will not,” Rafael said evenly, accepting his credit card back from the bartender. He hesitated. “Sorry to bail on drinks.”

“No you’re not,” Rita said, almost cheerfully. “But technically, drinks were had, even if just in an abbreviated fashion. Besides—” She caught the eye of the brunette at the end of the bar. “I think I’ll be fine.”

Rafael followed her gaze and nodded slowly. “Well, good luck,” he said.

Rita stood and drained her martini. “And to you as well,” she said sweetly.

“I don’t need luck,” Rafael called over his shoulder as he left.

Rita’s smile turned predatory as she made her way to the other end of the bar, to the brunette who smiled as she approached. “Neither do I.”


End file.
